Fear of a Female Planet

1. Sadly, we had to reschedule our trip down to Arches and Canyonlands due to Nick's frisbee injury (cracked rib or torn muscle - just not getting better). Hiking would be fine, but sleeping on the hard ground might exacerbate it.

2. So instead, we are going to get some more work done (new chapter for me, second article for him) and take a break to see Jodorowsky's Dune at the local film society. Maybe a hike on Sunday out to one of the Great Salt Lake islands (Saturday is supposed to be rainy and gross).

3. I scored a great point in frisbee last night - diving catch of an upside down disc by the fingertips - best score of the game if I do say so myself :)

4. I think I might do some gardening today :)

5. I made a YouTube playlist of my half-marathon setlist:

Kodi Smit-McPhee on the set of “The Road,” an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel, in which he plays the son to Viggo Mortensen’s father.

At World’s End, Honing a Father-Son Dynamic
By CHARLES MCGRATH, The New York Times, May 27, 2008

ERIE, Pa. — Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “The Road,” takes place in a world that, because of some unexplained catastrophe, has just about ended. The sky is gray, the rivers are black, and color is just a memory. The landscape is covered in ash, with soot falling perpetually from the air. The cities are blasted and abandoned. The roads are littered with corpses either charred or melted, their dreams, Mr. McCarthy writes, “ensepulchred within their crozzled hearts.”

For the crew that has just finished filming the movie version of “The Road” — a joint production of 2929 and Bob Weinstein’s Dimension Films, set to open in November — that meant an upending of the usual rules of making a movie on location. Bad weather was good and good weather bad. “A little fog, a little drizzle — those are the good days,” Mark Forker, the movie’s director of special effects, remarked one morning in late April while the crew was shooting some of the final scenes in the book on a stretch of scraggly duneland by the shore of Lake Erie here. “Today is a bad day,” he added, shaking his head and squinting.
( Read More )

I am going to channel alexeye and review 10,000 BC.

OK, first off - this has to be the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. See, we start off in the tundra (c. 10,000 BC), where a little tribe of mammoth hunters are experiencing the megafauna extinction. But, alas, in addition to this "four legged demons" come and enslave them! (why and how a bunch of Arabs riding modern horses with stirrups (not invented until c. 500 BC in Asia) and saddles (c. 800 BC in the Middle East) got all the way to Canada just to kidnap 10 dreadlocked mammoth hunters might be the first question you ask, but I was wondering where they got the metal manacles a good 9,000 years before the Iron Age.
( Oh, it gets better... )

Rogue and Intrepid to Deliver Couriers
Source: The Hollywood Reporter (January 22, 2007)

Rogue Pictures and Intrepid Pictures have picked up the movie rights to Couriers, a series of action graphic novels, and have set writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach to adapt, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Written by brianwood and illustrated by Rob G, the series follows the adventures of two gun-toting mercenary couriers named Moustafa and Special who take on jobs other couriers do not, such as intelligence, large cash transfers, protection, assassinations and blockade-running.

Three graphic novels have been published so far by AiT/PlanetLar. Marc Evans and Trevor Macy of Intrepid are producing.

Kidman the Villain in The Golden Compass
Source: Variety, July 31, 2006


Nicole Kidman will star in New Line Cinema's The Golden Compass, playing the villainous and glamorous Mrs. Coulter, reports Variety.

Shooting on the $150 million production, based on the first part of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, is set for September at London's Shepperton Studios.

Chris Weitz is directing from his own script. British newcomer Dakota Blue Richards has already been cast for the lead role of Lyra Belacqua, who travels to a parallel universe to battle the forces of evil and rescue her best friend.

Scholastic Media's Deborah Forte is producing with Bill Carraro. New Line is eyeing a November 16, 2007 release date.

And speaking of medicine...
( Virus as Metaphor: Microbiology and 28 Days Later )

From Roger Ebert's Review of "Gods and Generals"

"Here is a Civil War movie that Trent Lott might enjoy. Less enlightened than "Gone With the Wind," obsessed with military strategy, impartial between South and North, religiously devout, it waits 70 minutes before introducing the first of its two speaking roles for African Americans; "Stonewall" Jackson assures his black cook that the South will free him, and the cook looks cautiously optimistic."

You know, I have a degree in American history, AND I like military history a lot, but I could never get into Michael Shaara's brand of sentimental Civil War heroic drivel. And "Gods and Generals" was written by his son, so does that make it watered down drivel?

But Ebert reserves his true scorn for "The Life of David Gale", a movie he gave zero stars. Now remember that's pretty harsh - he even gave "Rollerball"and "Battlefield Earth" 1/2 a star!
When I saw the trailer for this movie I immediately figured out what would be the plot twist - Kevin Spacey (Mr. Full of himself) has framed himself for the murder to prove how corrupt the system is.

Here are some choice comments from Roger:

"This is a plot, if ever there was one, to illustrate King Lear's complaint, "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." I am aware this is the second time in two weeks I have been compelled to quote Lear, but there are times when Eminem simply will not do."

"The secrets of the plot must remain unrevealed by me, so that you can be offended by them yourself, but let it be said this movie is about as corrupt, intellectually bankrupt and morally dishonest as it could possibly be without David Gale actually hiring himself out as a joker at the court of Saddam Hussein."

"The last shot made me want to throw something at the screen--maybe Spacey and Parker."